Aurora
by karamitsuku
Summary: D/G set partially in the Regency era, c'mon you know what it's about, you either feel like reading romance or not, I doubt this summary will change your mind
1. kako e yukou

**Aurora**   
  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. Aurora was written by Luna Sea, under Universal Victor. I don't claim anyone or anything except maybe my humble translation. Or somesuch.   
  
A/N - one day I'll finish my other stories, but I doubt you'll care. Feeling an urge to work off stress I started writing this and am avoiding almost all semblance of non romantically driven plot. So yes, straight romance, no dark lords a'killin' or evils and mysteries aboundin'. One can hope anyway. By the way, I got the capitalizing urge because I was reading Georgette Heyer books over the weekend instead of studying or doing homework. Please forgive me and take it in the humorous manner it was meant to be taken in ^^;;   
  
Updated A/N - I added a big long section at the end to establish certain friendships that Ginny has, so you should probably read it so that you don't get confused later on... Unfortunately there's no Draco goodness goin' on. Sorry about the inherently Mary Sue-ish qualities of Diamonds of the First Water *lol*. Don't worry Blaise has her faults, it's just that not being pretty isn't one of them.   
  
-   
  
_ When you forgave my sins and my past -- I wanted to get close to your purity,  
To go back to the past, through the grey clouds, to a pure white time that knew no sin._  
  
-  
  
"One, two, three, four..." Virginia mouthed the words to herself silently. "five, six... wait did I count that one already?" She frowned thoughtfully at the young dandy waltzing by in his puce waistcoat, _ the fifth, or was it sixth?_ she'd seen tonight.  
  
Out of the corner of her eye she could see her mother frowning thoughtfully at her posture. A little self-consciously, Virginia, known to her intimates as Ginny, straightened her back against the uncomfortable wood of Almack's chairs. Once a week, every week, her mother dragged her to the subscription ball, so that she could drink stale lemonade and hopefully _ Catch a Husband_.   
  
She stifled an involuntary giggle at the image conjured up by that phrase. She could just see herself -- _ the Deadly Amazon Maid on the Prowl, in Search of a Man_. Perhaps she could hogtie him as she'd heard those wild colonials did? Or chase him down as they would a fox in Squire Hurst's annual hunt?  
  
Seeing her smile, one of the younger boys who fancied himself a poet detached himself from his set and started gravitating towards her. From his slightly unsteady gait, it seemed that he had had one to many drinks even if all that Almack's offered in the way of alcoholic beverage was watered down ratafia and some truly disgusting orgeat. He'd yet to have enough for his condition to be obvious, but definitely just enough to give him some Dutch courage.  
  
_ Oh no_, she groaned to herself, _ I must get out of his line of vision. Oh god, he's practicing his Smouldering Eyes and Devastating Look! Now I'm doomed._ She looked away, trying to avoid eye contact so that he couldn't work around to an introduction. Concentrating fiercely on the dance card dangling from her wrist, she suddenly realized that it could be take the wrong way and seem like an invitation to fill an empty space on it. Her mind panicked some more, running circles in her head and acting generally useless.  
  
"Oh look, Ginny dear, the second son of the Earl of Normanton is coming your way." Her mother burbled happily. She smiled with satisfaction at the attention that her daughter was receiving tonight. Certainly not the equal the young miss who was all the Rage this season. But enough so that she most likely wouldn't have to fear for suitable offers this season, even if Ginny's face seemed to slip into a most unattractive of scowls at times.  
  
_ No no no, I must get away, but how?_ Ginny panicked and stood up quickly. "I believe there's a tear in my hem, I'll just be over in the powder room pinning it up."  
  
"Oh, Ginny. Why do these things always happen to you at the most inopportune moments?" Mrs. Weasley sighed tragically. She never quite knew what to do with her hoydenish only daughter. Being raised with so many male siblings had left her quite lacking in the more delicate of sensibilities. "I vow, I've never seen anyone as victim to misfortune as you when an eligible _ parti_ appears."  
  
Ginny ducked her head meekly, "Yes mama, I know I'm a sore trial to you." Peeking through her lowered lashes she tried to gauge her mother's response to her repentant speech. It was her best look, she knew without vanity. With her large hazel eyes fringed with thick black lashes and slightly retrousse nose, her features already had a pixie-ish cast, this only added to it, allowing the slim arches of eyebrow to rise just slightly in contrition.  
  
"Well there there gel. I didn't mean to imply anything, why don't you just run along, perhaps he'll come again after the next dance." Patting Ginny's arm, Mrs. Weasley shooed her on her way.  
  
She delicately lifted her skirts slightly and began to pick her way through the crowd. A simple enough procedure in theory until one took into account such things as -- dowager canes, trailing hems, careless bucks and having to maneuver through all this while keeping your ankles out of sight and your hemline spotless.  
  
She sighed and wished for the thousandth time that someone interesting would come and sweep her off her feet.  
  
_ Oomph!_  
  
Fate was fickle indeed, as Virginia Weasley, lost in her thoughts, tripped over the elegantly clad leg of one tall, pale, and quite devastatingly handsome Draco Malfoy, Marquis of Worcester, only heir to his father the Duke of Beaufort.   
  
A slender, long fingered hand reached out languidly to prevent her fall. She stared at the gloved hand encircling her upper arm blankly. Her mind tried to recall the significance of the dragon rampant on his signet ring. _ Whose crest was it?_  
  
Looking up to mouth her thanks, she was arrested in mid-motion, trapped by grey eyes the color of storm clouds edged in black. Eyes framed by long dark silver lashes and dark slashes of eyebrow. Coupled with his pale skin, high cheekbones and elegant nose, it was only his surprisingly sensuous mouth that saved his features from cold forbidding austerity.  
  
Seeing her balance restored, he withdrew his support and casually straightened his lean length from the column he'd been leaning against.  
  
_ Thank God he doesn't believe in puce waistcoats,_ Ginny thought to herself irreverently. Instead he was impeccably clad from head to toe in unrelieved black. Which should have washed him out with his pale coloring but instead made him look almost inhumanly beautiful.  
  
"I've had young misses throw themselves at me before, but is the first time it's actually happened in the literal sense." He drawled languidly.  
  
_ Ugh!_ Ginny's hand itched to smack the insolent smirk from his face. _ I can't believe I thought he was worth considering...! Arrogant man!_  
  
Drawing around her the tatters of her dignity, she regally replied, "I do not believe we have been introduced. Good night, sir." She deliberately left out the courtesy title she knew he possessed.  
  
"Minx."  
  
With a toss of her head, she ignored his parting remark and swept away.  
  
-  
  
Ginny took a deep breath when she finally reached the powder room. _ That... that MAN!_ It was outside of enough that he'd witness her humiliating distraction. But to mock her instead of politely ignoring her faux pas...  
  
"Ooooh!" She seethed as her fingers reflexively strangling her reticule to death at the memory of one singularly elegant and rude lord.  
  
"Yes, punish the bad reticule." A laughing voice said from the direction of the mirrors to her left. "Bad, wicked reticule!"  
  
Flinching in surprise, Ginny dropped the sadly abused reticule to the floor when she pulled her fingers away guiltily. "'Tis outside of enough!" She shrieked quietly to herself. The whole evening felt as if she'd been stumbling from one humiliating contretemps to another. Her head drooped and she glared daggers as the unoffending floor.  
  
"Here, let me get that for you." Slender elegant fingers twined around the straps of the reticule, heedless of the carpet hairs that clung to her modish gloves.  
  
Ginny looked up, startled out of her self-pity.  
  
Her reticule dangled from the fingers of Blaise Zabini, pampered darling of her father's eye, an expatriate Russian Count who luckily managed to retain the bulk of his wealth when he emigrated. Her exotic origins, her wealth and most especially her beauty had caused Society to declare her this Season's reigning Toast.  
  
With her slim figure, guinea gold curls, cornflower blue eyes, and peaches-and-cream complexion it was no wonder that she'd been declared the ideal of feminine beauty. Men wrote reams of poetry to the perfect arch of her eyebrows, the damask of her cheek, and the deep pools of her eyes.  
  
"I'm sorry I didn't mean to laugh. My mother often tells me my sense of humour is quite lamentable." She offered apologetically.  
  
"I didn't think Diamonds of the First Water were allowed to have humor." The words popped out of Ginny's mouth before she realized what she was saying.  
  
Blaise started laughing again. "I'll remember to correct Mama the next time she rings a peal over my head then."  
  
Ginny flushed red with embarrassment. "I beg your pardon Miss Zabini, I don't know what came over me."  
  
"Oh but do call me Blaise. Accomplices in murder shouldn't have to stand on formality should they?" Smiling she pressed Ginny's reticule back into her unresisting hands. "And I shall call you...?" Her eyebrow lifted inquiringly.  
  
"Virginia Weasley, my friends call me Ginny." She said belatedly.  
  
Blaise clapped her hands together in delight. "How lovely, I knew you seemed familiar, we were in the same finishing school were we not? I remember how I envied you."  
  
"Envied me?" Ginny looked blank as all she could recall of her one short year at finishing school was the endless succession of hoydenish scrapes she had gotten into until she'd been summarily ejected by the headmistress.  
  
"Oh indeed." Blaise looked charmingly solemn. "I wanted to be the one riding barebacked through the woods and keeping pet snakes in my drawers. And when you left..." She sighed. "How lucky I thought you were to escape those dreary confines."  
  
Ginny blinked. "I never thought of it that way."  
  
"Well now we shall be the best of friends shall we not? Bosom bows." Blaise declared grabbing her arm and squeezing it companionably.  
  
"I'm sure we'll..." Ginny replied confusedly, feeling liked she'd been trampled by a coach-and-four...  
  
"Lovely, so it's settled." Blaise interrupted. Grabbing the unresisting Ginny's arm, she dragged her back to the ballroom.  
  
-  
  
"So, tell me who he is!" Blaise whispered as she and Ginny nimbly made their way back to their respective chaperons.  
  
"Who whom is?" Ginny's mind whirled. It was beyond confusing the way Blaise leapt from subject to subject.  
  
Blaise lifted up her fingers ticking off her points, "You came into the powder room completely flustered, you were muttering something about 'that MAN' --."  
  
"I said that aloud?" Ginny looked startled and then guilty. "Which of course I most definitely did not because I assuredly wasn't thinking of arrogant too-handsome-for-their-own-good lords…" Her voice trailed off as she thought she caught a glimpse of silver-gilt hair in the shadows.  
  
"…muttering something about 'that MAN' and now that we've returned to the ballroom you keep glancing around as if hoping to see someone." Blaise continued relentlessly.  
  
"No one, absolutely no one." Ginny declared firmly.  
  
"Very well, I'll tease you no more on the subject... for now." Though there was a resolute look in Blaise's eyes that didn't bode well for Ginny's future chances.  
  
Ginny scanned the room quickly for anything that could divert Blaise's single determination. With genuine delight she saw that her long-time neighbor Lavender Brown had apparently come up to Town for the Season.   
  
Seizing the opportunity (and Blaise's hand) she quickly made a beeline to Lavender's side -- where, with her glossy chestnut hair and serene manner she had attracted a loyal following among the more shy of gentlemen.  
  
Lavender, spotting their approach turned to greet Ginny warmly. Seeing Blaise in tow however, her smile froze ever so slightly before she regained her composure. It was over so quickly that Ginny would have thought she had imagined it, if not for the slight stiffness in Blaise's posture as she introduced them to each other.  
  
Blaise interrupted, "No need Ginny, we are already well acquainted. Is that not true coz?"  
  
Lavender smiled, her calm expression unruffled and serene. "'Tis true, though I'm sure that we have grown past our childhood squabbles."  
  
Blaise slanted an unreadable look at Lavender and then smiled back, "I'm sure they are so unremarkable that I've forgotten them already."  
  
Ginny looked back and forth between the two of the puzzled. From out of nowhere the thought drifted through Ginny's mind, _ This is weird..._  


~to be continued...~


	2. kimi dake wo...

**Aurora**  
  
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. Aurora was written by Luna Sea, under Universal Victor. I don't claim anyone or anything except maybe my humble translation. Or somesuch.  
  
A/N - aww back in the present, well I did say this was only partially a Regency. Though I could just make it a straight Regency I supposed... I really can't decided, maybe if someone gives their opinion on it?  
  
-  
_  
Only you..._  
  
-  
  
_What was in that butterbeer?_ Ginny groaned and pressed a hand to her forehead. _ Dreaming of Draco Malfoy, what was she thinking of?_ She shook her head in disbelief. "I would never make sheep's eyes at Draco Malfoy!" she huffed to herself indignantly. Unfortunately it seemed like her subconscious wasn't listening...  
  
Sighing, she kicked off the afghan cover her mum had knitted for her last Christmas and swung her legs over the side of her bed. Suppressing a yelp as her toes encountered cold flagstone instead of the slippers she'd been aiming for, she finally found them on her third try (they having mysteriously decided to cower under her bed instead of staying at her bedside like proper slippers…) Shoving her slender feet into her well-worn fuzzy bunny slippers, she yawningly slipped on a warm robe and headed for the communal bathroom.  
  
Absently running a comb through her tangled red curls, her mind drifted back to her dream. Not normally given to strange fancies, even in her dreams, it was surely a mystery as to why Draco Malfoy of all people was appearing them.  
  
And it had been so different from her normal dreams, so real… She could remember the sticky sweet taste of stale lemonade on her tongue. The feel of Pomona green silk under her hands. The light swish of skirts about her ankles. Even the way her hair had been pinned up with a few strands left to fall in smooth, glossy, red-gold curls that brushed her shoulders.  
  
That was the oddest part really, in her dreams she rarely remembered what she wore or looked like, and certainly not in such detail. After all Hogwarts clothes left hardly any scope for the imagination...  
  
_Ah, well, I must have the Regency period on my mind because of that locket I found in the antique store the other day in Hogsmeade. _ And Draco after all was very attractive, if a little too cool and sarcastic for her taste. Reminded of the locket she'd bought, she pulled it out from under her robe to admire it again.  
  
It really was a charming little thing, heart shaped, made of some indefinable tarnished-silver metal with a working of vines etched lightly down the sides. It was hinged, but for the life of her, Ginny couldn't figure out how to open it. Absently turning it over, she was surprised to realized that there was some sort of figure engraved on the back. _ Funny, I don't remember noticing this before, but it looks just like the dragon on the ring that Draco was wearing in my dream..._  
  
She pulled a face at her reflection and said to it, "Get it together girlfriend!" In her best California Girl imitation. And being a relatively normal sixteen year old girl she shook off her strange mood and concentrated on more important concerns, like the growling in her stomach. _Breakfast_, it was definitely telling her, _breakfast_. Never one to argue with what her stomach told her, she headed down to the Hall.  
  
Unfortunately, the staircases had decided to rearrange themselves in the night and so found herself heading past the library. _ Well, if I'm going to go past the library maybe I can find some books on antique jewelry_, Ginny thought to herself optimistically.  
  
Turning the corner at a fast clip, she ran into the a lean body, clad in dark green and silver robes. Slim hands automatically reached out to grasp her shoulders, pulling her close steadying the two of them.  
  
She took a shaky breath and then two. It didn't help slow the beating of her heart. As a faint, coolly citrus scent brushed her senses. She could feel the controlled strength in the hands holding her, and the body she was pressed against.  
  
Draco stared blankly down at the red-gold head pressed against his chest in astonishment for a moment or two before he realized it was a Weasley he was holding in his arms a pushed her away to arms-length.  
  
There'd been a softness in her hazel eyes for a second, he could have sworn. But it was gone now. Not that he cared how a Weasley would feel about him, but she'd felt nice in his arms, which just went to show that it was time for him to find a new girlfriend.  
  
"Throwing yourself into my arms? I didn't know you cared." Draco drawled, his smooth voice tinged with amusement.  
  
_Speak of the devil_, Ginny thought to herself in resignation. Pulling herself the rest of the way out of his arms, she tossed her curls and demanded, "What makes you think I was thinking of _you_? Maybe I mistook you for Harry."  
  
Draco arched his eyebrow in disbelief, "The little Weasley has fangs, would've thought? But even you can't be blind enough to mistake me for that speccy git."  
  
"I... wait a minute, why am I getting sucked into this argument anyway?" Ginny glared and wrinkled her nose at him.  
  
It looked charming he had to admit. "Another time Weasley, another time." he said lazily, flicking a finger against her nose before he sauntered away. _ After all_, he reasoned to himself. _ A Weasley was a Weasley, but a cute girl was still a cute girl and you couldn't blame a guy for the noticing the cuteness first could you?_  
  
As he walked away, Ginny saw something glinting on the floor. Curious, she bent to pick it up and saw that it was a pair of silver-rmmed spectacles. Swiveling her head around to gape at Draco's departing back, she thought to herself _ he wears glasses?!_  
  
Grinning a wide Cheshire grin she pocketed the glasses, wondering when he would notice that they were missing. He'd have to ask her nicely though, if he wanted them back. Feeling strangely cheerful, she made the rest of the way to the library with an extra bounce in her step.  
  
Walking through the dark arches of the library, she glanced briefly at the notice board. Stopping in mid-step she turned around to get a better look. All thoughts of looking up her locket were completely forgotten as she stared at the full sized glossy poster advertising that the theme for the Fall Dance this year was a Masquerade Ball.  
  
_This was it! _ Her chance to be with Harry, without all the baggage that came with being Ron's sister, or the girl who opened the Chamber of Secrets accidentally, or even worse the girl with the big gigantic crush on him. Not that she was even sure if she liked him in that way. But the crush had been such a defining part of life that she just wanted to make sure he wasn't the one and move on.  
  
She clapped her hands together in glee and raced back to the Gryffindor Tower to share the news.

~ to be continued... ~

couple of replies

Lysa K - yeah, I agree, she _is_ out of character but I was aiming for the slighty (or not so slightly) ditzy mom that often appears in the Regency genre. Anyhow, she's not the "real" Mrs. Weasley as you can probably tell from this chapter.

josephine - I'm glad you agree he's hot! ^__^ stick around for more encounters with Draco's body errr I mean his wonderful wonderful personality (yeah... that too!)

Wyld Rose - thank you for the compliment on my writing style. Now I'm scared that this chapter disappointed you, my writing is so hit 'n miss now from years of neglect! ^^;;

Stargazer - sorry they don't get properly introduced in this chapter, we'll have to wait for poor Ginny's next dream sequence. Isn't Georgette Heyer great? I've started reading the rest of her books again after a long hiatus (6 years!) but now I've finally got a library that carries all her books! And of course I hide it under the desks and try to read it in class during lecture... (not a good idea from front row seats unless you're exceptionally skilled tho)  



End file.
